NYTimes April 18, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger, By MARC LACEY
In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.
“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.”
….
Meanwhile, most of the poorest of the poor suffer silently, too weak for activism or too busy raising the next generation of hungry. In the sprawling slum of Haiti’s Cité Soleil, Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five offspring to a stranger. “Take one,” she said, cradling a listless baby and motioning toward four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. “You pick. Just feed them.”
Pricewise, rice floats on oil, We’ve gotten the word, Demand’s growing fast — Supply’s short, we heard.
Today’s food scarcity, Merely iceberg’s tip, The new centricity, Global hardship.
Steps could have been taken, And could be yet, If reason not forsaken In family planning net.
“Abstinence only” means, A baby’s on its way, Hungry ‘fore it weans, Empty belly day after day.
Birth control blocked, Bush gag order remains. Family planning bemocked, And ignorance reigns.
Looking back at what was said, Compassionate Conservative label Meant: conserve compassion, instead, No help to poor, this tower of Babel.
Effectively, the Bush attitude Similar to Marie Antoinette, In gross degrees of ineptitude, Prescribed default diet.
“Let them eat cake,” she said In out-of-touch haughtiness, And thereafter lost her head, For revolting abrasiveness.
“Let them eat mud,” W’s stance, Equally out-of-touch, bumpkinly, By enabling population advance That divides food too thinly.
Reverse foreign aid objective, And reduce mouths to feed, Allow bellies to be digestive, As dwindling food matches need.
A twin-edged thin blade of life: dwindling food and growing numbers. When life become desperate enough, they will take what they need to live, anywhere they can find it.
The introduction to this poem shows me the five faces of the greatest TERRORISTs and industrial engineers of slavery and starvation... Well this is THE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH... I should be talking on POETRY's concerns...
Thank You, Poet for honoring the NATIONAL POETRY MONTH with this jewel that adds treasure to the COFFER of POETRY. "Let Them Eat Mud"
made the eyes of my soul cry.
Oh, how I appreciate this timely and rightful poem! I could never agree with those who tout abstinance as the only allowable birth control for EVERYONE. Well, I don't see a mass convergence of those same people going to feed the starving children and babies! I don't see those same people going to children's hospitals to hold and rock a heroin/crack/whatever-addicted tiny baby. I'm stopping there before I say too much, but applaud your stance on this subject, sir Leland.
~~ Micke
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration examines the significance or relevance of the idea that the U.S. Constitution was, as many believe, divinely inspired. How much did that belief matter to founders of the nation and how much does it matter no
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration examines the significance or relevance of the idea that the U.S. Constitution was, as many believe, divinely inspired. How much did that belief matter to founders of the nation and how much does it matter no
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Keep writing. I hope they are reading.
Ron
Thank You, Poet for honoring the NATIONAL POETRY MONTH with this jewel that adds treasure to the COFFER of POETRY. "Let Them Eat Mud"
made the eyes of my soul cry.
In respect and admiration,
Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU
CJ
~~ Micke